Microsoft investors say Bill Gates should step down

Microsoft is in need of a new CEO, and we recently heard from analysts that there is little hope that Microsoft will choose the leader that the company really needs, and will rather choose someone who will avoid risks and stay the current path. New comments from investors are making it sound like that problem could be the fault of Bill Gates himself. According to Reuters, three of the top twenty Microsoft investors are asking Bill Gates to step down from his position as chairman of the board.

Apparently there are a few different reasons for this. First of all, the investors are saying that Gates' presence alone is causing the company to avoid adopting new strategies, and is limiting the power of whomever is in the CEO position. Additionally, there are worries that Gates' other responsibilities with his various philanthropic endeavors are taking up too much of his time for him to be able to effectively be the chairman of the board.

There is no word on how likely it is that the rest of the board agrees with those three investors though. The three investors hold about five percent of the company's stock. Just as comparison, Bill Gates is the largest single stockholder and owns four and a half percent of the company. Gates had owned forty-nine percent of Microsoft when it first went public, but has been selling a predetermined amount each year. If he continues that plan, he will have no stock left by 2018.

It happens look at Steve Jobs, he was fired by Apple until Apple almost went bankrupt under control of the PepsiCo CEO than he called Bill Gates and made a deal with the devil. He sold 10% of Apple to Bill so they could stay afloat and he came back as CEO and made Apple what it was before his death.

he is still with microsoft because its good business. he has barely anything to do with things happening at microsoft. the new windows 8, new windows phone, xbox. he had all these great ideas 10 years ago already but he didnt know how to bring them to life which his new team is doing for him now. so really he isnt contributing nor holding back anyone.

If he's selling back stock on a regular basis, sounds like he'll be ousting himself soon enough. I'm sure that's his plan all along, quietly slip away as the new dominant share holder takes the COB reigns.

The problem with this investors, they are becoming too greedy. That's just the case with Steve Jobs, when they were in trouble. They begged for him to come back. Of course he did made a great comeback.

I never said he didn't I just said he was fired. Thank you for elaborating on what he was fired for. However it was also for his drug use and his legal troubles with his ex-girlfriend over Lisa his daughter and namesake for one of his earliest computer. He really was losing it, when he was fired it let him go and get his head on straight he started eating right, and having a family life with his daughter. After he was on the right path again he got the offer to rejoin Apple which he did and took them to new heights.

I don't think he'll never reprise his role as CEO and I applaud him for it because the work he is doing for the world is too important.

However don't see how him being on the board is hurting the company. It was his ideas that made MS what it was and he is using what he learned there in a philanthropic capacity. Who is to say he can't bring some ideas and knowledge that he gained through philanthropy back to MS.

They seem to want to want him out because he is limiting what the CEOs can do. I wonder what other kinds of stupid crap MS would have done under the Ball(sack)mer reign without him there.

3.ilia1986 (unregistered)

Oh, new strategies? You mean like WP which still doesn't have even 10% of the global market? Or perhaps Windows 8 - an OS which polarized the market because it throws everything that was good in Windows 7 in favor of touch-based input. Or perhaps Xbox one which afaik focuses more on some other stuff than gaming.

Maybe it's the revolutionary KIN phones which were ultra successful? Or perhaps the Surface which sold millions of units?

Sure, new strategies! Microsoft has been executing all of them so well over those years.

/heavy sarcasm/.

At least Bill Gates was a nerd in his soul, not a psychotic control freak.

An interesting item. Why would they want Gates out right now if he will have no stake in the company in 5 years. Do these investors have some sort of plan that would change the company only if Bill is not there? It is highly unlikely that MS would suffer too much in the next 5 years if they were to simply stay the course. Bill Gates has done nothing to make anyone feel as if he does not have the best interest of the company. I think this is simply to get people talking. I would think that without Gates involved the stocks would take a huge tumble. Why would anyone believe in MS if there was so much uncertainty surrounding the company?

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